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The monastery
Two towers on the point are what remains of a monastery church
A Franciscan monastery had stood on the tip of the Dosso d'Avedo peninsula since the 13th century. The two towers that remain on the property are the remnants of the campanili of the monastery's church.
The cardinal
A cardinal who failed to buy an island bought this point instead
After failing to buy the nearby Isola Comacina, Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini bought this property in 1785. In 1787 he turned the monastery into a summer villa and added a loggia, which let viewers see two different panoramas of the lake.
Patriots
Italian patriots met here, and a tutor was arrested in 1820
Under Luigi Porro Lambertenghi the villa became a centre for republican activity, where Italian patriots and Carbonari met. His guest Silvio Pellico, who tutored his sons, was arrested by the Austrian government in 1820, and Lambertenghi was forced to move to Belgium.
An offer
An American kept returning with larger offers until he got it
Just before World War I the American businessman Butler Ames saw the villa for the first time. His offer was at first rejected. He kept returning with ever-larger cash offers until in 1919 he became the owner, and he renovated the villa and its garden.
Monzino
An explorer redecorated it and hid passages in it
In 1974 the villa was sold to Count Guido Monzino, who led the first Italian expedition to climb Mount Everest. He filled it with artefacts from his expeditions, and after the assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978 added hidden passages. It now belongs to FAI, the National Trust of Italy.
Day 3, morning
Next is Villa Carlotta.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Villa del Balbianello, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.